Sunday, January 22, 2012

Carved Heart Embroidery

Nerd alert: when I was a little kid, I loved doing embroidery and cross-stitching. I have vivid, happy memories of my mom helping me trace pictures from the Friend (a Christian kids’ magazine I loved) onto muslin to embroider, and I spent hours stitching away. (Maybe this is what’s wrong with kids these days . . . they don’t know how to cross stitch. I cross stitched, and I turned out swimmingly, ergo, today’s children should be cross stitching more. Embroider today for a brighter tomorrow!)

Unfortunately, I lost interest in it as time went on, and other hobbies stepped in to take needlework’s place. But a deep, beautiful, slightly inappropriate love affair with Allison’s embroidery on Little Lovelies (here aresome ofmy favoritesfromher blog) made me want to pick it up again. Then I saw this project at Miss Lovie a few weeks before Christmas—a little heart carved in a tree, complete with initials. It seemed like exactly the sort of Christmas gift I could spend hours making for Jeff, who would not appreciate it at all. And I was right!

Isn’t that sweet? I normally don’t go for the cutesy-pootsy “we’re so in love”-type projects, but I thought this one was cute without making me want to gag at its hormonal teenaged romanticism.

The original tutorial includes a printable pattern that you can trace onto your fabric to stitch over. Someone--and I don’t want to name names, but someone in this house who has an absurd obsession with electronic gadgets and is about 2 feet tall--broke our printer, so I couldn’t take advantage of the pattern. I just sketched out something that looked vaguely similar to the pictures and got to work. Mine is also much larger than the one in the tutorial—something like 5 inches across instead of ornament-sized.

I really love how it came out. I’m not entirely certain what to do with a single piece of embroidery art . . . I think I may want to start embroidering again, make some more little pieces, and cluster them together on a wall somewhere. This little project revived a long-dormant interest in a hobby that I had all but forgotten about. But for now, there’s just the one, and it’s perched awkwardly on Jeff’s nightstand. Three cheers for useless Christmas gifts!

Embroider today for a brighter tomorrow - haha! You crack me up. I looove to cross stitch but they always end up in a junk drawer somewhere because cute little hedgehogs with balloons just don't go with my decor. Your embroidery turned out so good! I've never embroidered but I would really like to. Especially if I could make something as cute as yours that I could actually put up in my house :)

I cross stitched as a kid too, I loved doing it! Still do :) I love this piece, I've been wanted to make one exactly like this (I bought a hoop just for it months ago!)!! Thanks for pointing me to a pattern for it, if my printer will work, I might make one this week.

lol, their may be something to this cross stitching thing. My sisters and I all cross stitched and I think we managed to turn out ok. Our husbands however never did and they are quite... okay I'm gonna be quiet so I don't get in trouble.

very sweet. I love this simple expression of love. I also cross-stitched until I discovered knitting and the cross-stitching fell by the wayside. I often see things that make me want to embroider, but no time yet to add another craft to my life.

Love it!! I also loved embroidering things as a kid...my oldest daughter is following in my footsteps! ;) I may have her make a couple of these for her grandparents for their anniversaries! How fun would that be?

LOVE your embroidery!!! I think it turned out super cute!!If you don't want to hang the hoop on the wall, you could frame it or you could use it as the center of a pillow. It would look cute in anything!